The text under review is a brief Latin decree of John XXIII, in which he, as head of the conciliar revolution in its preparatory phase, declares “Nossa Senhora do Ar” (“Our Lady of the Air”) the celestial patroness of all Portuguese aeronauts. It notes that Portuguese airmen spontaneously venerate the Blessed Virgin under this title, observes Portugal’s historic Marian devotion, cites the request of aeronautical authorities and the recommendation of Manuel Gonçalves Cerejeira, and proceeds to “choose and declare” this invocation as their heavenly patroness, attaching the usual liturgical privileges to this patronage, with the customary juridical clauses attempting to guarantee its perpetual validity.

This seemingly pious text, devoid of doctrinal exposition and saturated with bureaucratic formulas, is in fact an early, symptomatic fragment of the conciliar pseudo-magisterium: a sentimental, horizontal, and national-devotional manipulation of Marian piety that serves the consolidation of a counterfeit authority and the gradual dislocation of the Church from the reign of Christ the King to the cult of technological man and the modern state.

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Marian Ornament in the Service of a Counterfeit Authority

On the factual surface, the decree asserts:

– Portuguese airmen already invoke the Blessed Virgin as “Nossa Senhora do Ar”.
– They, aware of the fragility and dangers of flight, entrust themselves to her.
– The Portuguese nation has long experienced Mary’s special protection.
– Civil and military aeronautical authorities request formal recognition.
– Supported by Patriarch Cerejeira’s commendation, John XXIII:
– “Beatam Mariam Virginem … omnium Lusitaniae aëronautarum caelestem apud Deum Patronam eligimus ac declaramus” (“choose and declare the Blessed Virgin Mary… heavenly Patroness with God of all aeronauts of Portugal”),
– and attaches the liturgical honors due to patrons of groups or orders.

At first glance, nothing explicitly heretical is stated. Yet precisely this “neutral,” purely devotional register is the mask: the choice of themes, silence on doctrine, and the historical context reveal the deeper problem. By 1960, the same man who issues this sugary patronage letter is steering the Church toward the disastrous aggiornamento of Vatican II; this text is one more act in which he claims pontifical authority that, measured by integral Catholic doctrine, he does not possess.

From the vantage of pre-1958 ecclesiology and the teaching of the genuine Magisterium, the fundamental contradiction is immediate:

– A manifest promoter of doctrines and reforms tending toward condemned liberalism and Modernism cannot be simultaneously the organ of binding apostolic authority.
– Therefore this decree is not an act of the Roman Pontiff, but of an intruder using Marian language to crown his usurped jurisdiction with a veneer of continuity.

Theologically, the text is a pseudo-pontifical exploitation of true Marian devotion to normalize the new regime.

Naturalization of Marian Devotion and the Eclipse of Christ the King

The linguistic and theological construction is revealing:

– Mary is invoked strictly as functional patroness of a professional/technical group (“aeronauts”) and within the frame of technological risk.
– There is no mention of:
– the Most Holy Sacrifice,
– the obligation of the state and its forces (including air forces) to submit to the *social and public Kingship of Christ*,
– conversion from sin,
– the necessity of living and dying in the state of grace,
– the Four Last Things (death, judgment, heaven, hell).

Instead, we read, in essence:

“Lusitanian air sailors, for many years, have been accustomed of their own accord to invoke and honor the Blessed Virgin Mary, called ‘Nossa Senhora do Ar’, as they face many dangers, aware of the fragility of material constructions.”

This is horizontally true but vertically empty. Marian patronage is reduced to:

– a psychological support for professionals in a risky technical domain,
– a cultural-religious badge of a modern nation,
– an ornament to legitimize the burgeoning technocratic state.

Integral Catholic doctrine, as reasserted by Pius XI in Quas primas (1925), teaches that peace and protection are not secured by sentimental invocations appended to modern structures, but by public acknowledgment of Christ’s sovereignty in law, institutions, and morals: *“Peace is only possible in the kingdom of Christ”* (paraphrase, Pius XI, Quas primas). This letter, however, carefully avoids reminding Portugal’s military and political powers that:

– aircraft, air forces, and national defence are morally ordered only insofar as they subject themselves to Christ the King and His law,
– war, technological power, and national prestige are sinful when detached from divine and ecclesial authority.

The Blessed Virgin, in Catholic doctrine, is inseparably bound to the royal rights of her Son. Authentic Marian cult is intrinsically Christocentric, anti-modernist, and militantly opposed to naturalistic, laicist power. Here, she is invoked as a kind of airborne mascot.

This is the key naturalistic deviation: Mary is used to “baptize” modern technology and the military apparatus without confronting them with the demands of the Gospel, dogma, and papal teaching against liberalism and secret societies, such as the Syllabus of Errors of Pius IX.

Lex orandi lex credendi (“the law of prayer is the law of belief”): when prayer texts and patronage formulas are crafted to harmonize Marian devotion with neutral technocracy and modernist politics, belief is quietly bent to the same direction.

Sentimental Piety without Doctrinal Teeth: A Modernist Signature

The linguistic tone is a paradigm of “harmless” post-1958 religiosity:

– Warm, affective, vague: “amantissima Mater,” “singularis amor,” “praesidium”.
– Bureaucratically self-assured: *“certa scientia ac matura deliberatione … deque Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine”*.
– Entirely devoid of:
– doctrinal precision,
– anti-liberal, anti-naturalist militancy,
– any echo of the great condemnations that shaped modern Catholic consciousness.

Compare this to Pius IX’s Syllabus (1864), which unambiguously rejects the very principles that undergird the modern, technological-liberal order:

– Error 55 condemned: *“The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church.”*
– Error 79 condemned: the idea that full civil liberty for any form of worship and expression does not corrupt morals and spread indifferentism.
– Error 80 condemned: the notion that the Roman Pontiff ought to reconcile himself to “progress, liberalism and modern civilization.”

The letter of John XXIII is shaped by the opposite instinct:

– It smoothly integrates Marian devotion into the structures of modern “progress” (aviation, the military, technocracy) without insisting on their unconditional subordination to Christ’s Kingship and the Church’s doctrinal authority.
– It portrays the Church (or what he occupies as “Church”) as a gentle chaplain to modern professions: providing patron saints for categories (workers, drivers, aviators) without denouncing the anti-Christian principles saturating contemporary political and cultural systems.

This is pure practical Modernism: the Faith is not explicitly denied; it is neutralized by being woven into the fabric of secular modernity as a decorative, consolatory, optional extra.

Subtle Inversion of Authority: Usurpation Sealed with Marian Wax

One must attend carefully to the juridical formulae:

– “ex … certa scientia ac matura deliberatione Nostra deque Apostolicae potestatis plenitudine” – “from certain knowledge and mature deliberation of Ours and from the fullness of Apostolic power.”
– The decree proclaims itself:
– “firm, valid, and efficacious,”
– binding “in perpetuity,”
– nullifying any contrary attempt.

These are the classic marks of a pontifical act. But doctrine preceding 1958, including the theology of St. Robert Bellarmine and the canonists (as recalled in the Defense of Sedevacantism file), affirms the principle:

“A manifest heretic cannot be Pope” because “he cannot be the head of something of which he is not a member.”

When such a one, oriented toward reconciliation with condemned liberalism and laying the foundations of Vatican II’s revolution, uses Marian acts to exercise “Apostolic” jurisdiction, two things happen:

1. He reinforces in the consciousness of clergy and faithful the illusion that his authority is continuous with Pius IX, Leo XIII, St. Pius X, Pius XI, Pius XII.
2. He instrumentalizes holy names and devotions to strengthen his usurped throne.

The Marian title itself is not the issue; the person and system that promulgate it are.

– The letter’s assurance that its judgments are irrevocably valid is self-referential fiction once the claimant is measured by the perennial doctrine on authority and heresy.
– The invocation of the Blessed Virgin is deployed as a shield against scrutiny: “How could such a pious act be anything but Catholic?” Precisely here lies the deception.

From Christocentric Hierarchy to Professional Chaplaincy

A crucial omission: the text does not call Portuguese aeronauts to:

– Confession of the true Faith,
– rejection of liberal, socialist, or Masonic ideologies condemned by true popes,
– fidelity to the integral moral law in their personal and military conduct,
– public acknowledgment of Christ as King over their profession and nation.

Instead, the logic is:

– since they already invoke Mary in their professional context,
– since their superiors and a compliant hierarchy ask for a patroness,
– “we” (the usurping authority) bless this practice, give it a liturgical stamp, and thus present ourselves as guardians and promoters of Marian devotion.

This reduces the Church’s supernatural mission to:

– rubber-stamping national devotions,
– sprinkling holy language over professions and state structures,
– functioning as a religious service provider to modern society.

Pre-1958 doctrine presents a radically different picture:

– The Church is *a perfect, sovereign society* (*societas perfecta*) endowed with divine rights (cf. Syllabus, proposition 19 rejected).
– She claims unrestricted freedom to teach, judge, and command in matters of religion and morals, binding individuals and states.
– She refuses to be subordinate to, or merely “recognized” by, secular powers (cf. Syllabus, 20–21, 39–42).

In this light, the structure of the letter is inverted:

– It begins from the spontaneous practice of aeronauts and the “public authorities” of aeronautics.
– It puts at the center the request of state-linked functionaries.
– It then wraps this in ecclesiastical formality.

The Church – or rather, the structure that claims to be the Church – is here condescendingly responding to the desires of a professional milieu, not imposing divine law on it. Marian patronage is an ecclesiastical endorsement of a sociological fact, not an instrument of supernatural conversion and subjection to Christ.

This is the embryo of democratized, consultative “pastoral” Magisterium: the leaders do not teach from above; they ratify from below.

Silence on the Enemy: No Condemnation of the Powers that Rule the Air

The most damning aspect is the silence.

– No warning concerning the moral dangers of aviation as an instrument of total war, mass destruction, and godless technological pride.
– No reference to the pervasive influence of ideological systems – liberalism, socialism, Freemasonry – in modern armies and states, which Pius IX, Leo XIII, and St. Pius X unequivocally condemned, including their infiltration into governance and law.
– No call to sanctify this profession by resisting unjust commands, immoral bombardment, or collaboration with anti-Christian regimes.

Instead, the only “danger” acknowledged is the physical risk arising “from the fragility of things manufactured from matter.”

This betrays a fundamentally naturalistic optic: the spiritual danger of flying under banners hostile to Christ is not perceived; only the danger of crashing. The Mother of God, within this framework, becomes a celestial insurer against accidents, not the Queen calling soldiers of the air to combat for her Son’s Kingship against the “powers of the air” in the Pauline sense.

Such silence is not neutral; it is complicity.

Qui tacet consentire videtur (“he who is silent is taken to consent”): by blessing the profession without confronting its ideological and moral entanglements, the pseudo-magisterium consents to the modern order and styles itself as its kindly chaplain.

Continuity Masked: From Pre-Conciliar Forms to Conciliar Substance

One might object: are not many pre-1958 pontifical acts also brief, devotional, and dedicated to new patronages? Yes. But the difference lies in context and direction:

– True popes of that era simultaneously upheld:
– the Syllabus of Errors and anti-liberal condemnations,
– the doctrine of the social reign of Christ the King,
– the firmness of dogma and the immutability of revelation,
– stern measures against Modernism (e.g., St. Pius X’s Lamentabili and Pascendi).

Thus, when they extended patronages, they did so within an integral, combative doctrinal horizon.

By contrast, John XXIII in 1960 stands at the threshold of Vatican II; his pontificate openly signals “aggiornamento,” a desire to reconcile with “modern civilization” that Pius IX had branded as an error (Syllabus, 80). In this climate:

– every apparently innocent devotional decree functions as a brick in the façade of continuity,
– while underneath, the foundations of doctrine, liturgy, and ecclesiology are being loosened.

This letter is a case study in that tactic:

– Marian veneer;
– national-symbolic appeal;
– continuation of curial style;
– complete omission of the doctrines most offensive to the modern world.

Sub specie pietatis error tegitur (“Under the appearance of piety, error is covered”).

Marian Devotion Hijacked for the Conciliar Sect’s Self-Legitimation

By claiming to “choose and declare” a Marian patroness, John XXIII manipulates several realities at once:

1. He appropriates Portugal’s authentic Marian sensus fidelium, historically marked by devotion under true popes, and aligns it with his regime.
2. He sends to the Portuguese hierarchy and laity the signal:
– that fidelity to Marian devotion equals fidelity to him,
– that his alleged pontificate is simply continuing the Marian piety of previous ages.
3. He thereby blurs the critical distinction between:
– obedience to the Roman Pontiff as defined by Vatican I (Pastor aeternus),
– and submission to a paramasonic, conciliar structure that will soon enthrone religious liberty, ecumenism, and anthropocentrism.

The doctrinal documents provided (Quas primas, Syllabus, Lamentabili) arm us with the key principle: the true Church never uses devotion to cloak doctrinal retreat; her piety is the radiance of her dogma, not its substitute.

Here, piety is weaponized against dogma by distraction and sentimentalism.

Conclusion: Between Heaven and the Airbases – A Call to Discern

Summarizing the essential points:

– The decree’s Marian title in itself need not be problematic; the Church has long recognized particular invocations.
– However, in 1960 this act is issued:
– by an authority whose broader trajectory openly tends toward rapprochement with condemned modernity,
– in language conspicuously evacuated of doctrinal sharpness,
– in a form that celebrates a profession and technology while ignoring the demands of Christ’s social Kingship.

Key symptoms of theological and spiritual bankruptcy:

– Silence about Christ the King and His rights over states and armed forces.
– Silence about the sacraments, grace, and the need for conversion of those invoked as protégés.
– Silence about modern errors (liberalism, ecumenism, religious indifferentism, Freemasonry) which permeate the very institutions being blessed.
– Use of Marian devotion as a decorative layer to legitimize an authority engaged in the preparatory stages of the conciliar apostasy.

An integral Catholic response is therefore twofold:

– To venerate the Blessed Virgin according to tradition, recognizing her true queenship over all states, professions, and technologies only in perfect dependence on her Divine Son and His unchanging law.
– To reject the manipulative use of her holy name by those who, having abandoned the doctrinal intransigence of Pius IX, St. Pius X, Pius XI, and Pius XII, seek to integrate her into a syncretic, naturalistic, and modernist framework.

Where the reign of Christ is not proclaimed, where the Syllabus is forgotten, where Modernism is no longer anathematized but courted, Marian patronages become mere emblems affixed to an airframe already commandeered by another pilot.

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Source:
Aligera cymba   (vatican.va)
Date: 08.11.2025